Hope Runs: An American Tourist, a Kenyan Boy, a Journey of Redemption

Claire Diaz-Oriz is an author, speaker, and technology innovator who has been named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company.  Claire was an early employee at Twitter, where she still works.
She is the author of several books, including Twitter for Good:  Change the World One Tweet at a Time.  She is a frequent international speaker and writes a popular business blog at www.clairediazortiz.com.
Claire holds an MBA from Oxford University and a BA and an MA from Stanford University.  She is the cofounder of Hope Runs, a nonprofit organization operating in AIDS orphanages in Kenya.  She has appeared widely in major television and print news sources such as CNN, BBC, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Fortune, Forbes, Wired and many others.
You can find her on Twitter @claire.

Samuel Ikua Gachagua was born in rural Kenya in 1992.  After losing his parents at a young age, he struggled to survive until he was placed in an orphanage in Nyeri, Kenya.  In 209, he reeived a full-ride scholarship to Maine Central Institute, granting him a rare US visa and the chance to begin his sophomore year of high school under the guardianship of Claire Diaz-Ortiz.
After graduating from high school, he spent a year serving in Ecuador as a fellow for Global Citizen Year.  He is an up and coming motivational speaker and can be found on Twitter @sammyikua.

Hope Runs is the emotional story of one American tourist, one Kenyan orphan, and how one day became one year that would change the course of both of their lives forever.  It's about opening your heart to outrageous possibilities.  It's about what it means to hope for the things you cannot see.

It's about how God can change your life in the blink of an eye.









My Thoughts:
Hope Runs is a book not about a chance encounter, but a book about the beauty of God's sovereignty over two lives and the impact those lives now have on our world; an impact only possible because of God's transformation in both Claire and Sammy's life. This story will have you laughing out loud one moment, shedding tears the next and in between simply smiling in amazement at the sweet providence over every detail of a life that would have been otherwise discarded.
Claire's approach to her work is beautifully stated early in the book:

"The way to enact true social change in the world is to acknowledge that the biggest impact at work is often not in the conversational English skills or hygiene needs of the local populations but rather in the volunteer's own transformation.  If it was really all about the locals, after all, many times we'd be much better off sending our money to organizations that employ locals on the ground to do the English teaching and the health work.  However, by having one cross-cultural experience, then another and another, these volunteers - if given the right tools to recognize the importance of what they themselves are actually learning - have a good chance of one day doing something that can hopefully make things a little better.  The volunteer's value to the local is not in that single three-month stint building a church or two but in the possibility that those three months can transform the volunteer into someone who gives for life."  (pg. 29)

The story is told from both Claire's and Sammy's points of view; the sincerity with which they both tell their stories will change you.  Read Hope Runs and be changed for life.

Order this week and you'll get $150 in freebies *and* be entered to win over $1,000 in prizes! See details here.

• A 50% discount to my upcoming course, Blog to Business.
• A 50% off discount to my course, Share to Sell.
• A bunch of free ebooks by me and others (see the full list below).

FREE ebooks

• The Present Principle: Seven Steps to Life in the Now
• Lead by Morning: 365 Days of the Present Principle
• How to Be Social: A Social Media Manifesto
• How to Be a Morning Person
• Simple Email Success: A Short Happy Guide to Email Mastery
• How to Fundraise on Social Media
• How to Set Up a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog: A Guide to Starting Your Own Blog in 9 Minutes or Less
• How to Travel the World for Less than it Costs to Stay Home: Taking Your Life on the Road at a Price You Can Afford
• How to Work Smarter, Not Harder: On Getting Out of the Grind and Getting More Done
• Make Better Decisions: How to Think Less and Decide More

By purchasing you'll be entering to win one of the following prizes:

• Four $100 Amazon gift cards
• Ten $10 Starbucks gift cards
• 1 $100 donation in your name to Hope Runs
• Four free passes to the Twitter for Good online class

How can you get your bonuses and freebies?

1. Order Hope Runs at one of your favorite retailers. (See a full list of retailers here.)
2. Send the receipt to hoperunsbookreceipt (at) gmail.com and we'll respond with the information of how to get access to your bonuses. We'll also email you if you've won a prize on Tuesday, April 21.

*I was given a complimentary copy of the book and asked to post an honest review.

Blessings,

Jennifer